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The 3D-printed reproduction of the Assyrian statue was previously displayed at the Colosseum in Rome and the Unesco headquarters in ParisItaly has donated a reconstructed Assyrian statue to Iraq in what has been described as a “miracle of Italian cultural diplomacy”. Constructed in the ninth century BC, the 5m-tall Bull of Nimrud was destroyed by Isis fighters in 2015, before Italian artisans made a copy of the monument using 3D-printing technology. The replica, which was previously displayed at the Colosseum in Rome and the Unesco headquarters in Paris, has now been permanently relocated outside the entrance to the Basrah Museum....

After faring thus badly the enemy departed, while the Greeks continued their march unmolested through the remainder of the day and arrived at the Tigris river. Here was a large deserted city; its name was Larisa, and it was inhabited in ancient times by the Medes. Its wall was twenty-five feet in breadth and a hundred in height, and the whole circuit of the wall was two parasangs. It was built of clay bricks, and rested upon a stone foundation twenty feet high... Near by this city was a pyramid of stone, a plethrum in breadth and two plethra in...

The chilly December wind whipped rain across the strewn wreckage of a city that, nearly 3,000 years ago, ruled almost the entire Middle East. Rivulets of water ran through the dirt, washing away chunks of ancient stone. The city of Nimrud in northern Iraq is in pieces, victim of the Islamic State group's fervor to erase history. The remains of its palaces and temples, once lined in brilliant reliefs of gods and kings, have been blown up. The statues of winged bulls that once guarded the site are hacked to bits. Its towering ziggurat, or step pyramid, has been bulldozed.

When U.S.-backed Iraqi forces pushed [1] ISIS out of Nimrud last week, they found 70 percent [2] of the 3,000-year-old Assyrian village razed and its 140-foot tall mud brick ziggurat [3], which is considered one of ancient Mesopotamia’s most spectacular structures, “reduced to a pile of dirt.” “The destruction was worse than we thought,” Iraqi Ministry of Culture General Director Qais Hussein said [4], adding that “it’s a huge loss to Iraqi heritage” and to world history. After two years of occupation by ISIS, much of Nimrud , including what is widely believed to be the world’s first library, has...

ISIS barbarians have destroyed a 2,000-year-old gate close to their Iraqi stronghold of Mosul. The breathtaking structure is known as the Gate of God, and used to guard the ancient Assyrian city Nineveh. The destruction of the ancient structure, also called the Mashki Gate, has been confirmed by the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, and the Antiquities Department in Baghdad has not denied the demolition. The terrorists demolished the ancient gate using military equipment, according to activists in Mosul. ISIS thugs have destroyed many of Iraqi historic sites and monuments, including the Assyrian city of Nimrud, the Winged...

Violent political Islamists intentionally target irreplaceable archeological and historical sites for sensational obliteration. Internet videos record the ISIS's calculated destruction of Syria's city of Palmyra. Prior to Palmyra, Nimrud (northern Iraq) was bulldozed before cameras. Jonah's Tomb (Jonah and the Whale), located in a mosque in the ISIS occupied city of Mosul, was blown to bits. ISIS radicals said Jonah's presence in the mosque was an apostasy. Like beheading Arab Christians, raping Yazidi women, murdering captured Iraqi soldiers and burning alive a Sunni Muslim Jordanian Air Force officer -- all acts of heinous, premeditated cruelty -- violent Islamists see destroying...

ISIS Targets City that Inspired Washington, D.C. for DestructionPosted By Daniel Greenfield On May 22, 2015 @ 12:29 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 30 Comments [1]Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.The great columns and pediments of Washington, D.C. that give it a Roman and Greek air have their origins in a lost city in the Syrian desert. After Robert Wood and James Dawkins visited the ruins of Palmyra [2] in the eighteenth century, the illustrations of the bare columns and broken arches helped inspire neoclassical...

[Syria] Palmyra [Syria] Mar Elian Monastery [Syria] Apamea [Syria] Dura-europos [Syria] Mari [Iraq] Hatra [Iraq] Nineveh [Iraq] Mosul Museum And Libraries [Iraq] Nimrud [Iraq] Khorsabad [Iraq] Mar Behnam Monastery [Iraq] Mosque Of The Prophet Yunus [Iraq] Imam Dur Mausoleum

ISIL is obliterating the Middle East's cultural landmarks. But should we arm ourselves in order to save threatened sites, asks Dan Cruickshank. ‘When Egypt comes under the auspices of the Khalifa [Caliphate], there will be no more Pyramids, no more Sphinx, no more idolatry.” This, I was told by British Muslim political activist Anjem Choudary, “will be just”. This chilling recent interview with Choudary in east London was part of a journey that started in early 2002. I went to Afghanistan in March of that year, just after the fall of the Taliban, to report for a television programme on...

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has released a video showing jihadists smashing, bulldozing and blowing up 3,000-year-old artefacts in the ancient Assyrian capital of Nimrud. The video depicting the destruction at the Iraqi site shows jihadists using sledgehammers and drills to smash huge alabaster reliefs and a bulldozer to bring down walls. The jihadists are then shown placing barrels apparently filled with explosives before blowing up three separate areas of the site, one of Iraq's greatest archaeological treasures.

The recent bulldozing by the Islamic State (ISIS) of the ancient cities of Nimrud, Hatra, and Korsabad, three of the world's greatest archaeological and cultural sites, is just this group latest round of assaults across the large area under its control. Since January 2014, the flamboyantly barbaric ISIS has blown up Shi'i mosques, bulldozed churches, pulverized shrines, and plundered museums. Worse, the ISIS record fits into an old and common pattern of destruction of historical artifacts by Muslims.[snip] In some cases, conquerors turn non-Islamic holy places into Islamic ones, thereby asserting the supremacy of Islam. This can be done by...

BAGHDAD - Islamic State militants in northern Iraq have destroyed a collection of statues and sculptures dating back thousands of years, according to a video published online in the name of the radical Islamist group. The video showed the statues, some identified as antiquities from Iraq's 7th century BC Assyrian era, being toppled, smashed and broken up by sledgehammer. A man shown in the video said they were being destroyed because they promoted idolatry. "The Prophet ordered us to get rid of statues and relics, and his companions did the same when they conquered countries after him," the unidentified man...

While the history of civilization is being demolished by war and religious zealots in the rest of Iraq, in the Kurdistan Region archeologists are marveling at a stunning discovery: the remains of a long-lost temple from the biblical kingdom of Urartu, dating back to the 9th century BC. Kurdish archaeologist Dlshad Marf Zamua, who has studied the columns and other artifacts at the find, told Rudaw these were unearthed piecemeal over the past four decades by villagers going about their lives, digging for cultivation or construction. But only recently, after the discovery of life-size human statues and the unearthed columns,...

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group began bulldozing the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in Iraq on Thursday, the government said, in the jihadists' latest attack on the country's historical heritage. ISIS "assaulted the historic city of Nimrud and bulldozed it with heavy vehicles," the tourism and antiquities ministry said on an official Facebook page. An Iraqi antiquities official confirmed the news, saying the destruction began after noon prayers on Thursday and that trucks that may have been used to haul away artefacts had also been spotted at the site. "Until now, we do not know to...

Archaeologists and officials have expressed outrage about the bulldozing of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud by Islamic State militants in Iraq. IS began demolishing the site, which was founded in the 13th Century BC, on Thursday, according to Iraqi officials. The head of the UN's cultural agency condemned the "systematic" destruction in Iraq as a "war crime". IS, which controls large areas of Iraq and Syria, says shrines and statues are "false idols" that have to be smashed. "They are erasing our history," said Iraqi archaeologist Lamia al-Gailani.

The Islamic State jihadist group began bulldozing the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq on Thursday, the tourism and antiquities ministry said. IS "assaulted the historic city of Nimrud and bulldozed it with heavy vehicles," the ministry said on an official Facebook page, the group's latest attack on the country's historical heritage.

What’s THE biggest media myth to come out of the Iraq? War and its messy aftermath? Forget Maureen Dowd’s attempt to trash George W. Bush by altering the president’s words. That kind of "journalism" has become just standard operating procedure at the New York Times. (" All the News Fit to Distort") No, for sheer, long-lasting stamina, we nominate the urban legend about the pillaging of Baghdad’s archaeological museum. Remember how it was supposed to have been emptied by looters? It was THE RAPE OF CIVILIZATION! The anguished comments from distinguished archaeologists sounded more like tabloid headlines. The Death of...

BAGHDAD — The fall of Baghdad brought large-scale looting of the treasures of ancient Iraq. In the ancient city of Nimrud, 250 kilometers south of Baghdad, now tells Al-Majalla security staff had to be especially vigilant around the ancient tunnels, Ibrahim Atta, in charge of security there, told Al Majalla, a sister publication of Arab News. Thieves were using the tunnels to gain entrance to the city and its museum. They usually came at night and never hesitated to shoot at anyone who got in their way. Ibrahim says his team successfully repulsed all such attempts. Foreign observers say that...